Building Google’s Nest

Spoiler Alert: The following quote is the conclusion, but says most succinctly what I loved about Kyle Baxter’s whole take on the Google-Nest deal. Go read his entire post, it’s a good one!

In the short-term, then, I think there’s very good reason to be excited about the deal. I bet we are going to see even more incredible things come out of Nest than we would have seen otherwise, and probably faster as well. But long-term, I’m disappointed. Nest is one of those rare companies that identified a brilliant product idea, in a large market, that would allow them to develop into something much greater in the future. And along the way, they built a first-rate company in all areas. I believe Nest would be one of the most important companies in the world for the next twenty years. And while they may still be integral to personal computing and the web’s future, it will likely be under Google’s banner. For better or for worse.

-Kyle Baxter,“Tony Fadell Explains Nest’s Sale to Google”, Tightwind

I have decided not to say much on the subject of the deal because jumping to conclusions about the future is not really what I do on this site. However, I was viscerally disappointed with the announcement last week, just as Kyle was. I don’t like Google, which seems to be where a lot of people are finding their problem with the acquisition, although I do use some of their services, which also seems to be common even among the vocally disappointed crowd. Nest was a company that I was excited about and wanted to see succeed. As I said, I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I will say that my plans to buy their products in the future changed the day I found out. Until I know more about how this partnership with Google will look moving forward, those purchase decisions will be put on the back burner.